Bazaarvoice Connections Brings Brands, Retailers Closer Digitally

Bazaarvoice enables brands and retailers to collaborate optimally on a digital collaboration platform by releasing a new edition of Bazaarvoice Connections. Brands can now discuss their products or services on retail and shopping sites.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (News - Alert) revealed in a recent study that 84 percent of consumers do research online before making a purchase from a store or website. Bazaarvoice Connections strives to connect brands to consumers at the point of research, enabling direct conversations between them in order to remove doubts that may result in sales drops.

“Bazaarvoice gives us an easy way to leverage our suppliers to provide the information that our customers need as they research and make purchases,” said Hal Lawton, president of Online at The Home Depot. “By enabling a direct relationship between the brand and the consumer, Bazaarvoice Connections allows us to reduce returns and increase sales, while furthering our value to the customer and their shopping experience.”

Bazaarvoice Connections enables retailers and participating suppliers to boost sales conversion, reduce return rates, and in the process gain valuable insights. As brands are directly taking part in consumer conversations on company sites, the volume of searchable, SEO-rich content increases, attracting more new customers.

Similarly, hotels can engage with consumers in online travel agency sites while restaurants can respond to reviews on national reservation and review sites. Brands can also answer regarding consumer packaged goods, consumer electronics, appliances, beauty products and so on, said officials.

Brands receive alerts when new user-generated content occurs about their products on retail or shopping sites via Bazaarvoice Connections. Brands can then access a Web portal to answer questions, respond to reviews and make recommendations that are published with their brand logo to maintain authenticity.

The brand input encourages consumers to return to the retail site to view the answer. This in turn leads to a purchase in most cases, explained officials.

In June 2012, Data Foundry, a provider of wholesale and retail data center outsourcing, colocation and disaster recovery services, announced a colocation partnership with Austin-based Bazaarvoice to house its core IT infrastructure into the former’s Texas 1 data center facility.